At the orders of President Al Bashir, her body will be wrapped in the national flag and flown to Khartoum to her final resting place.

Veteran Sudanese communist and feminist leader Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim died at the age of 84 in Britain on Saturday morning.

Hundreds of mourners including politics leaders and armed movements gathered to her home in Omdurman upon hearing the news.

The Sudanese Presidency mourned Fatima’s passing describing her as a pioneering figure in the political, parliamentary and feminist work in Sudan and at the regional and international levels.

President Al Bashir directed to transport to Khartoum her body at government expense and to organise an official funeral for her as a national figure who served her country with sincerity and devotion.

Fatma had founded the Union of Sudanese Women in 1952. She joined the Communist party in the mid-50s. She was a vocal opponent of the then military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Abud that ruled Sudan between1958-64. She became a member of parliament in 1965 following the collapse of the Abud regime the previous year.

In 1990, she fled to exile in the UK where she continued with her human rights efforts.

She won a UN award in 1993 for her human rights campaigns.

In 2006 she won the Ibn Rushd Prize for her struggle for women’s rights and social justice in Sudan and the greater Arab world.

Fatima has published two books – ‘Our Path to Emancipation’ and ‘Our Harvest in Twenty Years’.

Her struggle for women’s rights and democracy isa source of inspiration for many Sudanese activists.